Sarah

Settling in

Life is rather busy with a number of unexpected events overtaking us, as well as the start of sixth form for my youngest and the prospect of planning for University for my eldest – however Greg has settled in quite nicely among the turmoil. He is highly socialised, having come from a large family with lots of other pets… so he wasn’t fazed by Pippi’s rejections and slowly she is coming around to accepting him.

So September’s here with all its spiders and webs, night’s drawing in, early dew point and the smell of Autumn in the air. Continue reading “Settling in”

Nose out of joint….

Pippi-Long-Stocking has had her nose put out of joint. A new kitten has arrived.

Continue reading “Nose out of joint….”

Still Life with Flowers

For Ara’s still life competition

In memory of Joe Slavko

Two chicken breast and four hungry people to feed.

Luckily the chicken breasts were large ones, so I felt I could conjure up a meal for four without resorting to the supermarket dash after a day in the garden, hedge trimming and tidying up. My back is tired – I couldn’t face Sainsco’s or Tescrose or even Waitburys.

Continue reading “In memory of Joe Slavko”

Hedging

The garden is quite large, by modern (mid-70’s build) garden standards, about 60 beech hedges across, (placed roughly 15 inches apart.) And this year I decided that the hedge had become too tall, and in order to reduce the height I had to lop or saw through large stems with which the electric hedge trimmer couldn’t cope, at all. It was hard work, but I’m glad I’ve done it, as I can see out beyond our garden into the fields again. I planted this hedge about 12 years ago and now I want to maintain it at a certain height: to allow me to be able to trim it without the use of ladders. Continue reading “Hedging”

Unfit for purpose

for the photo challenge

Since I last photographed this bench it has deteriorated further….

On the canal – holiday poem

On the Canal

The pondskaters’ erratic
flick-flack glide disrupts
like light shower dimples

while the flash of a fish
spreads ripples through
inverted sunset clouds. Continue reading “On the canal – holiday poem”

Raindrops keep falling on my head…

I have been Sunday working today, and when I got up at 7.15 am, bleary eyed, the sun was out. I woke up properly as I had my first cuppa….

I picked this from my garden yesterday, and snapped it this morning, back-lit by the promise of a beautiful day….

by the time I left the house an hour later, I had already seen rain and above there were very heavy clouds. I remembered to check that both the raincoat and umbrella were safely in the car, just in case. Continue reading “Raindrops keep falling on my head…”

Bradley Wiggins

🙂
Hats off to Bradley?

Judgement on photo competition 29

The photo competition, number 29 asked for photos to illustrate what the weather was doing in your area of the world… and I thought there would be masses of entries – but no, only a few!

OZ posted a laid back cat, sunning on a wooden beam – wonderful blue skies behind. How envious I felt.

Soutie posted several pictures, here, here, here and here illustrating rather extreme wet and windy weather in South Africa. My favourite of all these was the third, where the damage and the scale of the trees is clearly seen.

Boadicea posted a picture of a kookaburra in an old gum tree, and this for me is the winner.
I may be biased, but I love those wonderful birds and their call reminds me so much of camping trips in 1987 -88! I can almost smell the eucalyptus…. But more than that it is a beautiful photo: the composition is balanced, with the branch shape, the proportion of blue against the silvered bark, and the tufts of the bird’s head-feathers echoed in the sharp spikes of the broken off tree stump.